What will YOUR retirement look like?

[honobob]

The what would you do if you became rich thread reminded me of this Poll I ran on another retirement forum and the results were pretty much 70% looking to keep a low/middle class lifestyle in retirement.  It would be interesting to see how the Musticians stack up.  Of course there is a lot of subjective wiggle room in this but even if your "middle" class lifestyle might be looked at in awe by some other middle class people I think the telling part is your perception of that change in your life.

As for me, yep, in the 30% that are looking at major upgrade.  Mostly over time as my base expenses will pretty much stay the same even inflation adjusted while my "excess" income will pretty much double every 10 years.  Not more crap, but more of what I like.

[tracipam]

Not sure that I want to pick just one option--after all, I'm planning on being more or less "retired" for rather more than half my life.  It will probably be a combination of:

living abroad/teaching English/etc;
living abroad/randomly traveling;
wandering around North/South America in an RV;
settling down in random parts of the US for brief contracting gigs, teaching gigs, working at national parks, etc;
settling down in a low cost of living area and possibly learning how to raise goats;
whatever else I come up with that sounds fun. 

[honobob]

Wow!  36% moving to a low cost area for middle class life.  Are you equity immigrants or renters that will pay lower rents or be able to buy a house in lower cost area?

[arebelspy]

Interesting poll.

I'm the first "other" vote, as none of the options applied.

I'm planning on a perpetual travel lifestyle.  We're going to live somewhere for a few months, move to a new place and live there for a few months, etc. etc. (mostly overseas, but sometimes in the States).

We'll do that for a number of years, and after that who knows.

[coconutpop]

Probably Thailand doing what ever I feel like at that age.

Or

Moving to the US, hanging out near high schools and smash the smart phones of the kids on the floor while laughing my ass off.

[TreeTired]

Wow!  36% moving to a low cost area for middle class life.  Are you equity immigrants or renters that will pay lower rents or be able to buy a house in lower cost area?

We didn't plan this as full retirement, but it just worked out that way.  We knew we had to move from a very high cost area to a lower cost area,  especially housing cost.  We sold our old house for a lot of money so we were able to buy our current very nice home for 27% of the price of the old one with no mortgage. Property tax bill is 14% of the old bill.  It felt inexpensive at the time but we could have gotten a nice home for a lot less money, so here we are living upper middle class.  I can't even honestly call what we did "downsizing."

[Russ]

Another "other". Probably gonna slow travel for a while outside the continent or travel by van in NA for a few years, then settle down and move to a high- or mid-COL big city. I'm really not committed to that at all though, that's just what I imagine happening. Probably actually going to do something totally different 'cause priorities change.

[expatartist]

DH and I met overseas, and are committed expats. Our journey to 'retirement' has been a mix of low-cost and higher-cost/income-generating locations.

We see life as shifting up and shifting down, more shifting-up for the next few years, then downshifting later on to cheaper, warmer locations, to more actively manage holiday/rental properties we've bought in those regions.

[Jamesqf]

Yet another 'other'.  In my case, I'm simply not going to retire.  I'm self-employed, work pretty much as much or as little as I want, enjoy what I do, like the place I live...

[RapmasterD]

I will eat chili out of the can. But it will be good chili. Amy's Organic Chili. (No, I don't work for Amy's Organic).

[Rural]

Other. Staying in the extremely low COL area where we're building the stache, not moving.

[Numbers Man]

I voted for "other" because my retirement plan is evolving. I've been doing a lot of reading of all the possibilities that are out there. Add in to the mix that I have children that I want to see on a regular basis. Currently, I'm leaning toward living in the US and traveling Internationally 2-3 months out of the year.

[nawhite]

I chose travel N and S America possibly via RV but I don't think we'll even be the MMM definition of "retired" at that point. To fit with our life goals we're doing something a little different.

At about 30, DW and I will have all student loans paid off, 150k in 401k's and ~50k -75k in home equity. At that point we are planning on taking that FU money and going to work in the outdoors as raft guides, kayak instructors, ski patrol, ski instructors for a few years until we get bored of that and decide we want kids.

We both know we're going to take a huge hit on lifetime earning potential doing this plan but being able to do the stuff we want while we're young will make it worth it to us. We'll also have enough in the 401k that we could never add to it until 65 and we'd still be ok. We only need to cover our living expenses between now and then. Living in an RV by the river makes for awfully low expenses.

[arebelspy]

I chose travel N and S America possibly via RV but I don't think we'll even be the MMM definition of "retired" at that point. To fit with our life goals we're doing something a little different.

At about 30, DW and I will have all student loans paid off, 150k in 401k's and ~50k -75k in home equity. At that point we are planning on taking that FU money and going to work in the outdoors as raft guides, kayak instructors, ski patrol, ski instructors for a few years until we get bored of that and decide we want kids.

We both know we're going to take a huge hit on lifetime earning potential doing this plan but being able to do the stuff we want while we're young will make it worth it to us. We'll also have enough in the 401k that we could never add to it until 65 and we'd still be ok. We only need to cover our living expenses between now and then. Living in an RV by the river makes for awfully low expenses.

That sounds awesome.